


Choices

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Asexual Arthur, Asexual Character, Established Relationship, F/M, Past Regrets, Queen Gwen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Gwen has never resented her life; not back as a servant scrubbing floors, not as a queen gliding across them. But she has wondered about what it would’ve been like, had she chosen differently.





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw this interview, and what Bradly says got me thinking about a possible reason for their childless marriage.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Zigmt9veu6M&app=desktop

Gwen has never resented her life; not back as a servant scrubbing floors, not as a queen gliding across them. But she has wondered about what it would’ve been like, had she chosen differently.

Here, in this moment, with the afternoon soon cresting through a high window, across the soft sheets of her bed, she  _ wonders. _

It isn’t as though she wasn’t aware of what she was getting into, what she was marrying. Arthur, ever nobel and ever honest, had told her up front that there were certain marital duties he just  _ could not  _ fulfill.

If she is being honest with herself, basking here in the glow of summer warmth, she can admit that she wasn’t entirely aware of what she was wedding that day.

Her hand skims over a belly soft and full with the wealth of a kingdom and her eyes burn with the desire for it to be full of something else.

These moments in the afternoon are a gift to her. Arthur gives them, knows how she spends them, and he never dares to interrupt her. Sometimes she thinks he feels guilty and thats the real reason he leaves her alone. Sometimes she thinks he’s just uncomfortable, watching the way her fingers skim her breast, twist her nipples.

He watches her on occasion, when she can convince him to linger. Watches the glide of her hands over her mound, through her dark curls. She tries to entice him then, tries to get more than an absent curiosity from him, but as her fingers scrape over that little nub, as her feet arch against the sheets and her hips buck up, he loses interest. Busies himself with court documents or a nap.

She doesn’t know if he loves her. He’s comfortable with her. And they’re friends, close friends, but she wonders sometimes, if that isn’t  _ exactly  _ why he chose her. Someone he was comfortable spending time with, someone he could relax around.

There’s no passion there, and she doesn’t know if it’s a result of his… affliction, or if its because she’s not  _ his  _ .

She’s seen him with Merlin, the way his cheeks flush and his lips pucker. There’s a gleam in his eyes, an excitement, that she’s never once had shine on her. She doesn’t think he’s aware, that he knows his own heart.

When his hands hover about Merlin’s shoulders, she  _ knows  _ . It was selfish of her to marry this man. Free and wild in her youth, she’d assumed she could change him,  _ fix  _ him. She was this tool that could mend the broken edges of him.

Young and unafraid and so very naive, she had assumed Arthur just didn’t know what he was missing. She’d heard stories before, of men who feared the consummation. Who did not understand the woman’s body, and thus decided a woman’s body was not for them.  Servants had gossiped, girls blushing as they’d lured such a man into their beds. How they’d lain with them, taught them how to explore a body, appreciate one.

Part of her wonders, did she marry Arthur because she loved him. Or did she marry him because he was a challenge; something fragile and fixable.

He offered her once an escape. A chance to leave, to live her own life. When the rumors began to spread about the Queen’s ever flat belly, of the night’s not spent together by King and Queen. She’d been proud though, and head strong.

She made a commitment. A promise.

But she’d made one before and broken it. To a man with warm brown eyes and a shy smile.

She chose Arthur, she chose this marriage. She chose a man who does not touch, and she tries not to regret it, to resent it.

Her fingers skim her belly and the sun dips low and she doesn’t cry, not this time, but she doesn’t go to Arthur’s side either.

  
  



End file.
